Time poems
/ page 558 of 792 /
The Dons of Spain
© Henry Lawson
The Eagle screams at the beck of trade, so Spain, as the world goes round,
Must wrestle the right to live or die from the sons of the land she found;
For, as in the days when the buccaneer was abroad on the Spanish Main,
The national honour is one thing dear to the hearts of the Dons of Spain.
September On Jessore Road
© Allen Ginsberg
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
No place to shit but sand channel ruts
Peter Anderson And Co.
© Henry Lawson
They tried everything and nothing 'twixt the shovel and the press,
And were more or less successful in their ventures -- mostly less.
Once they ran a country paper till the plant was seized for debt,
And the local sinners chuckle over dingy copies yet.
Dan, The Wreck
© Henry Lawson
Manner puts a man in mind of
Old club balls and evening dress,
Ugly with a handsome kind of
Ugliness.
Scots of the Riverina
© Henry Lawson
The boy cleared out to the city from his home at harvest time --
They were Scots of the Riverina, and to run from home was a crime.
The old man burned his letters, the first and last he burned,
And he scratched his name from the Bible when the old wife's back was turned.
The Alchemist
© Rainer Maria Rilke
He capped a flask and hissed a quiet curse
Bleakly smiling, tapped a switch to bleed
A pressure vessel. (Clearly what he needs,
To manufacture his own Universe,
The Paroo
© Henry Lawson
It was a week from Christmas-time,
As near as I remember,
And half a year since, in the rear,
We'd left the Darling timber.
The Musagetes
© Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
IN the deepest nights of Winter
To the Muses kind oft cried I:
My sister Lifes overflowing today
© Boris Pasternak
My sister Lifes overflowing today,
spring rain shattering itself like glass,
Queen Hilda of Virland
© Henry Lawson
PART I
Queen Hilda rode along the lines,
And she was young and fair;
And forward on her shoulders fell
Corny Bill
© Henry Lawson
His old clay pipe stuck in his mouth,
His hat pushed from his brow,
His dress best fitted for the South --
I think I see him now;
The Professional Wanderer
© Henry Lawson
When youve knocked about the countrybeen away from home for years;
When the past, by distance softened, nearly fills your eyes with tears
You are haunted oft, wherever or however you may roam,
By a fancy that you ought to go and see the folks at home.
Tom Moody
© William Henry Ogilvie
Death had beckoned with grisly hand
To the finest Whip in hunting-land.
The Man Who Raised Charlestown
© Henry Lawson
They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.
The Vagabond
© Henry Lawson
And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.
In The Days When The World Was Wide
© Henry Lawson
The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow,
For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go;
Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side --
And tired of all is the spirit that sings
of the days when the world was wide.
Youth's Agitations
© Matthew Arnold
When I shall be divorced, some ten years hence,
From this poor present self which I am now;
When youth has done its tedious vain expense
Of passions that for ever ebb and flow;
The Squatter, Three Cornstalks, and the Well
© Henry Lawson
THERE WAS a Squatter in the land
So runs the truthful tale I tell
There also were three cornstalks, and
There also was the Squatters Well.
